“After both the defamer and Yelp refused to remove untrue and

California Supreme Court rules Yelp can be ordered to remove defamatory posts

cheap moncler outlet The decision overturns several lower court rulings. cheap moncler outlet

cheap moncler Internet companies had warned that the decision in the closely watched case could be used to silence online speech. https://www.moncleroutlett.com The California justices agreed in a 4 3 opinion, saying removal orders such as the one attorney Dawn Hassell cheap moncler coats obtained against Yelp “could interfere with and undermine the viability of an online platform.” cheap moncler

moncler outlet store In 2013, Hassell sued Ava Bird, a client she had briefly represented, saying that Bird had defamed her on Yelp by falsely claiming that her firm failed to communicate with Bird, among other things. moncler outlet store

cheap moncler jackets San Francisco Superior Court Judge Donald Sullivan found the online statements defamatory and ordered Bird and Yelp to remove them. Hassell said Bird did not answer her lawsuit and did not remove the posts, so she had to seek a court order demanding that Yelp do it. A second judge and a state moncler jacket sale appeals court upheld Sullivan’s order. cheap moncler jackets

monlcer down jackets But the Supreme Court of California has now overturned it. Supreme Court. monlcer down jackets

moncler outlet “Ms. Hassell did exactly what she should have done,” Olivier said Monday. “After both the defamer and Yelp refused to remove untrue and damaging statements, she obtained a judgment against the defamer, and sought to enforce that judgment by requiring Yelp to remove the defamation.” moncler outlet

cheap moncler coats Aaron Schur, a deputy general counsel for Yelp, praised the move in a blog post Monday. He argued the lower court ruling would have allowed businesses unhappy about negative reviews to get them removed via a new legal pathway. The decision assures online publishers in California that they “cannot be cheap moncler outlet lawfully forced to remove third party speech through enterprising abuses of the legal moncler outlet system,” Moncler Outlet he wrote. cheap moncler coats

buy moncler jackets With online reviews taking on an increasingly important role in shaping companies’ reputations, some businesses are turning to the courts for relief. In Manhattan, a gynecologist moncler jackets outlet is suing his patient for $1 million over poor online reviews. Google is also the target of a lawsuit from a California winery whose owner says the establishment’s negative reviews are from an online troll who has never visited the business. buy moncler jackets

cheap moncler sale Internet giants Facebook, Twitter and Microsoft said in a letter to the California Supreme Court that the lower court ruling “radically departs from a large, unanimous and settled body of federal and state court precedent” and could cheap moncler be used to “silence a vast quantity of protected and important speech.” cheap moncler sale

Three of the California Supreme Court justices agreed with Yelp that the removal order violated a 1996 federal law that courts have widely interpreted as prohibiting internet companies from being treated as the speaker or publisher of users’ posts.

moncler sale “In substance, Yelp is being held to account for nothing more than its ongoing decision to publish the moncler outlet uk challenged reviews,” Chief Justice Tani Cantil Sakauye said in an opinion joined by associate justices Ming Chin and Carol Corrigan. moncler sale

moncler mens jackets In a dissenting opinion, Associate Justice Mariano Florentino Cuellar said nothing in the 1996 federal law allows Yelp to “ignore a moncler sale properly issued court order meant to stop the spread of defamatory or otherwise harmful moncler sale outlet information on the internet.” moncler mens jackets

Cuellar also wrote: “Even indeed, perhaps especially in a society that values free expression, people expect courts and statutes to offer them minimal protections from disparaging misrepresentations or abject moncler outlet jackets lies deliberately circulated to the public.”

moncler sale outlet The dissent raises important questions about how to govern the internet, said Eric Goldman, co director of the High Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara University School of Law. moncler sale outlet

moncler outlet online Still, Goldman said the appeals court ruling upholding the removal order against Yelp was an “outlier” and would have led to “open season on internet companies.” moncler outlet online.